The audio-visual collaborators discuss world-building, identity and decolonising spaces in the digital and offline realms.

Gabriel Massan and LYZZA both want to build new worlds, but it’s up to us to figure out how to navigate them. This shared conviction from the scene-defining CGI artist and DIY wunderkind is foundational to Third World, a multi-level, “offline metaverse,” which Massan describes as a “consciousness-raising game that explores Black indigenous Brazilian experience.” Commissioned by Serpentine Arts Technologies and featuring Web3 integrations built on the Tezos Blockchain, the game explores ignorance towards the outdated notion of the “third world” while drawing from ideas of shared cultural memory, speculative and fictionalised archaeology, and the construction of virtual ecologies around how we feel, rather than how we live or how we are represented. Third World also serves as a platform for an ever-expanding team of artists, developers, and critics, including Castiel Vitorino Brasileiro, Novíssimo Edgar, Carlos Minozzi, Masako Hirano, Marcinho Manga, Ralph McCoy, Alexandre Pina, and LYZZA, who not only created the soundtrack but worked on every bit of sound design across the entire game.

Taking cues from academic Saidiya Hartman’s notion of “critical fabulation,” a practice of including fictional detail alongside factual material in order to expand, develop, and add specificity to writing about Black history, Massan and LYZZA use their experiences as markers to guide their own exploration of the worlds they seek to build, not as a map for those that follow them. By immersing players in systems designed to replicate the inequalities and injustices experienced by both artists throughout their lives, their work invites us to rethink our relationship with the world around us, a process of communal narrative crafting that, in Hartman’s words, functions as “a way of naming our time, thinking our present and envisioning the past which has created it.”

This feature was originally published in Fact’s S/S 2023 issue, which is available to buy here.

LYZZA: Gabriel and I worked on Third World simultaneously; he was building the world as I was creating the sounds separately. Working with sound design prior to this, I would usually receive finished material and then work through that, but at this point it was so abstract, there was nothing except for mood boards of what the world would look like. We really do like the same kind of references.

Gabriel Massan: Cute and disturbing! I always want to bring everyone that inspires me to co-create, to imagine themselves in a different reality. I want my friends to experience a world that is not based on their identities, to rethink everything in a way that is not really related to us or the way we are.

L: That’s what I found so interesting about working on this video game together! I had no idea what the final project was gonna look like, I just had notes and keywords from you.

GM: I didn’t want to bring any specific sound references as the game’s not based on the idea of representation, unlike the first game I made with artists from rural areas in Brazil, which was for young children living in favelas. This time I knew I was working in Europe and that my audience was mostly white, so I didn’t want to give them my identity for them to play with. This was my way of exploring the ignorance towards the concept of the “third world.” How can I criticise how people navigate the world itself? We are entering this era of digital worlds and we’ll probably be navigating those worlds with the same concepts and in the ways we are navigating the real world. How can I make a world in which you’re thinking that you’re doing one thing, but you’re actually being portrayed in another? I like to disturb and to annoy and to cause discomfort, because this is something that I feel almost every day. I love to make things that don’t really make any sense, for you to find the sense in yourself. Sometimes this sense is problematic, because you are problematic! This is what I like to reflect in my work, this nonsense that in the end is not senseless, it’s meaningful.

L: Through the removal of sense you create space for people to fill, that’s the only way you’re gonna be able to find yourself in a world where everyone is tied to their physical identity. It’s not just Black people, it’s everyone. The only way to get people to actually find out who they are is by removing this sense of what the world wants to put upon us. Some people think that my music is uncomfortable, but I hope that everybody can listen to it. I do like to rustle some feathers, but more to expand your horizons and make you question things. I don’t necessarily want people to be disturbed. If you are, maybe there’s a reason for that, you can figure that out by yourself. What I love about art is being able to create something that is critical, but still finding some way to reach out your hand to people and let them into that critique. My rift with the music and art industry is that the digestibility of the finished product is valued over certain conversations that should be had. Artists get forced into a system where everyone has to understand their work, leading their audiences to stop questioning it completely, which then creates a very homogenous culture. That’s how a lot of things slip through the cracks.

GM: We live in a world where everything needs to be explained. Everything needs to be digested.

L: I always think about this when it comes to our work. Within fine art it’s acceptable to make people uncomfortable; it still can be considered great art. This is what I struggle with in music—for some reason everything has to be liked. I don’t necessarily make music that’s supposed to be digested to a point where you like it; it’s supposed to make you feel something that is not always enjoyable. That’s what is really cool about your art as well, it does definitely make you feel things. A lot of visual art, especially 3D work, is so commodifiable and so easily turned into a product. It can very quickly become something that’s supposed to look super pretty, all smooth and bubbly. A big part of what makes your work uncomfortable is that you take the time to include so much texture.

GM: But at the same time I’m using cute colours and cute drawings. It creates some confusion, which I like.

L: There’s so much power within that. I have always loved not knowing what’s going on, when you have no context. You remove the sense, you like it, but you don’t know why, so you have to question it. There’s this moment of the question that makes both our works so intangible and we find each other in that. It’s been really nice to find someone that creates work that allows me to explore worlds without having to relate to stuff that already exists. That’s what I love about sound design, you’re creating sounds that are non-existent in our current realities. It almost forces you to explore in a different way, to move in a way you haven’t moved before. Our work gives people the space and the freedom to create their own story. It’s funny that neither of us is trained; it’s probably the reason why we’re creating these new references instead of taking from what we’ve been taught. We have to explore ourselves to be able to even get to the point where we’re at today, because who’s gonna teach us!

GM: When I started I wanted to create situations and scenarios that were close to me. I wanted to talk about violence without using the same old images of violence, I wanted to talk about race, or racism, without forcing the topic. I was trying to replicate what was inside my head, or inside my heart, but in a way that wouldn’t feel triggering for people, or triggering for me. When I started to do video art was when I first started to see myself as an artist. At that time I was always talking about topics that were much bigger than me, trying to represent the other’s perspective, but I realised that I just want to tell my own story without needing to call it out for everyone, that I’m not everyone’s saviour. Now I really want to create beings and objects without a strong connection with humankind, or even signs and symbols that we use as a society. It’s a way to tell stories without leading with prejudice.

L: For me, making music is actually the only space and time that I have to not be political. I’m able to explore these more complex sides of myself outside of how the world might view me, because my existence in this world is always politicised. Through my music I want people to understand me through complexity and connect with that feeling of being understood. Being born in Brazil, moving to Europe, being part of the Afro-Latino diaspora, and also coming from quite a broken family, I think I never knew where I belonged. In Europe especially, being Black is such a different thing. When I first moved to the Netherlands people would make comments about stereotypically African American things because the concept of Blackness is such an Americanised idea, but my Brazilian side was completely overlooked. People group you together with their ideas of what Blackness means and you lose parts of yourself. Within my music, it’s just been me trying to piece together these parts and exploring how I feel. I have to create these new sounds to feel like I’m telling my own story and have other people relate to that, that’s how I truly feel seen. Every genre has been touched by Black presence or history and because of that I did not feel like there was any space for me to say what I wanted to say without being tied to these historical movements of sound. So, I guess I make my music for myself, but I really appreciate how that in itself translates to people who also feel the need to be connected or understood; they can relate to that part of my creation. It’s just wanting to feel like you belong to something, I think that’s where the world building comes in.

GM: When you put our work together, we’re both talking about self-expression, but in a way that is complex and abstract.

L: Neither of us is really seeking to tell people what to think about our work. We’re not telling people how they’re supposed to perceive it.

GM: The lack of direct paths makes the work intangible, which is a word that you always use about sound. I think my work is also like that, but what defines both worlds is the technique. When it comes to thinking about colonialism, it’s really how this or that cannot be put inside a box. Our work dives in a different way, it can’t be described as only one thing, like: this is Black music, or this is a Black artist. This is something people normally struggle to understand.

L: That’s the only way in which I feel that my music gets colonised, when people try to frame it within my identity above anything. White artists specifically get so much more space to create art from whatever point they want to. When people describe me as a Black artist, I sometimes want to ask: At the end of the day is my work only worth a conversation about my physical identity?

GM: Should we always say these things? Should we always carry them? Even though we are not bringing these topics to the centre of the conversation in our work, institutions usually do—those in charge are looking to POC artists to bring this conversation inside their institutions. They start to apply this pressure—we need to talk more about Black culture, we need to talk more about Indigenous culture, how can we portray this? How is your practice decolonial? When I’m creating, I’m creating based on my own history. My existence in this space is already decolonial, the way I’m making art is already decolonial. Everything that I’m doing is already decolonial, so why do you need to ask me? Why do institutions need to put pressure on me, to ask me about space and explain to me how important it is?

L: It’s like, bitch, I’m here! That’s how I’m decolonising this space.

GM: It’s really hard to navigate. Immigrating to Europe relocates your mind. Changing cities is one thing, but changing continents changes your whole history. When I came to Spain in 2019 for my first residency, my art gained a bit of distance from my personal experience. I started to think more about the emotional side of it, the memory of my culture, what culture was for me. How can I write my own story? I don’t have any access to what came before my grandpa and my grandma, I just know they came from different areas of Brazil. I started to rethink how I can access my own history. My unconscious vision for creating pieces comes from this need to see symbols and images that I can relate to, drawing this map of things from my past that I now have the power, through creativity and technology, to bring back. It’s this constant exercise of trying to redraw my history, to get closer to the past and critique it. I don’t know how many sculptures I’ve made, but it all feels like archeological research. Saidiya Hartman has this term in her practice, “critical fabulation.” You take real facts and write a story by putting fictional writing into it. I think in the same way, but way more fictionalised.

L: I feel like that’s probably the whole reason why my music sounds the way it does. As opposed to you, I think I’ve always very much known who I was, I just had a really hard time feeling able to relate truly who I am to the world because there are so many perceptions that are put upon my outside shell. The only way for me to dig deeper within that is with music and sounds. I create music that feels logical for me to make, it’s a creative expression of me taking in my feelings, my surroundings, and how I feel in the moment and then converting that into sound.

WORDS: Henry Bruce-Jones
PICTURES: Reece Owen
ART DIRECTION: Gabriel Massan & LYZZA

PHOTOGRAPHER’S ASSISTANTS: Dominik Slowi, Kamila Banks
STYLING: Lucy-Isobel Bonner
HAIR: Yuho Kamo
MUA: Charlie Murray
PRODUCTION: 180 Studios
TECHNICAL DIRECTOR: Pawel Ptak

This feature was originally published in Fact’s S/S 2023 issue, which is available to buy here.

Read next: Interview: Tschabalala Self

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Many see the 1960s and 1970s as the Golden Age of Ghanaian music. The scene thrived with Highlife, melding African rhythms, guitars, and jazz-infused horns. Lyrics based around folk culture and social commentary were the key style, with music and musicians brandishing a powerful influence. Indeed, such was this potency that, in the early 1980s, the incoming military regime cracked down, levying high import taxes on musical instruments and equipment and imposing curfews. Alongside a declining economy and increased poverty, live music began to be replaced by DJs. Musicians left the country in their droves to West Africa, Europe and North America, particularly Canada. An article in The Guardian suggests that “the Musicians Union of Ghana had estimated that 25% of musicians had emigrated in search of better opportunities.”  

In German cities such as Hamburg, Berlin, and Frankfurt, the emerging Ghanaian diaspora developed a new style of Highlife, termed burger highlife, which took its name from the German word for citizen. Burger Highlife saw the slinky guitar lines and horns fused with the introduction of more modern, electronic sounds produced by the readily available drum machines and synthesisers, alongside benefits accrued from hi-tech recording facilities. Traditional highlife boundaries were extended, incorporating disco, house, funk, boogie, R&B, reggae, European new wave, Caribbean zouk, and soca into the music. Experimentation was the order of the day, and musical envelopes were pushed, introducing and connecting this form of Highlife to new audiences. As leading burger highlife artist Charles Amoah notes, “The whole idea was to cut through, not make music solely for Ghanaians, but it was designed to cross borders, for people in Europe to relate to it too.”

These innovations continued throughout the 1980s, and the 18 burger highlife, electronic afrobeat, and reggae tracks on this new Soundway Records collection, from many of the legends of Ghanaian music, open an illuminating window on the importance of music, as Sarah Osei describes it: “The guiding spirit of discovery and curiosity that anchored this experimental phase of highlife music revolutionised Ghanaian identity and sensibilities.”

From the very first bars of the opening track, Ebe Ye Yie Ni from The Godfathers’ eponymous debut album, released exclusively in Nigeria in 1980, the template of what, in the main, is to follow on this release, is clearly laid out. The band recorded the album in London in 1979, comprising Ghanaian and Sierra Leonean musicians. There is no requirement to understand the Twi and Hausa languages to appreciate the music with its swirling keys, American funk and soul, African rhythms, classy brass, wah-wah effects, dynamic bass runs and catchy refrains which permeate Delips Apo’s composition.   

Following the breakup of The Godfathers, Kumasi-born Delips moved to Sweden and released a solo album, Dadadi, drawing on music from the Caribbean, which blended Latin, soca, and zouk styles with contemporary production techniques. Jigi Jigi, from that album and his second contribution here, shows this range of influences and features a blistering trumpet solo from Kevin Robinson alongside some wonderful timbales playing.

Twi, a variety of the Akan languages spoken in central and southern Ghana, features extensively on this release, including on Gye Wani, from one of Ghana’s best-known vocalists, Pat Thomas, ‘The Golden Voice of Africa’. One of the very first musicians to leave Ghana, Pat spent time in Berlin, London and Accra before settling in Toronto, an essential location for Ghanaian migration. The horn riffs and Afrobeat percussion here present a sound much closer to ‘traditional highlife’ than many on the compilation, with a vocal rawness echoing the gritty soul/funk of James Brown.

In the 1980s, this Canadian city, the home of the North American burger movement, also spawned Marijata (confusingly also the name of a Ghana-based Pat Thomas band from the 1970s), a band formed by Nana Agyemang Badu Opambuo and fellow Ghanaian, Richard Adom, which also featured Ata Kak, who was later to achieve fame as a singer/rapper, on drums. Otanhunu, taken from their LP Ma Ndaadame, is a joyful, uplifting, seven-and-a-half minute romp, with the swirling organ of Mark Adams and conga playing of Maringue Joe augmented by driving brass. The synth breaks around the four-minute mark, and the subsequent “duelling” with the organ is glorious.

Smouldering poly-rhythms, relaxed, laid-back solos, and female vocals intertwining with the brass instrumentation feature on M.C. Mambo, a track recorded in Ghana in 1985, from Pepper, Onion, Ginger & Salt, a group which blended local and foreign, German, musicians. West Africa, in this case, Benin, also saw the release of the LP Star Of the Sea by Ernest Honny, from which the song New Dance is taken. Having moved to Benin in the 80s, Ernest continued to display the innovative, creative and boundary-pushing edge that was his trademark in the previous decade when recording for the Essiebons label. New Dance is a prime example of how far musicians took traditional Highlife into hitherto uncharted realms of experimentation. Awash with celestial vocals from Adele Adeoko and Mary Amegan, and utilising a Yamaha RX11 drum machine along with Korg 61, and Yamaha Digital DX7 synths, the track is very much 80s pop music with an African swing.

Four more cuts were initially released in Germany. Five songs in, we get Kaakyire Nua, a contribution from one of the genre’s key pioneers, George Darko, whose Akoo Te Bofo single is regarded as the genesis of burger highlife. Kaakyire Nua, recorded in 1983, can also be viewed as groundbreaking. Musically, modern technology is employed, as mainstream disco beats blend with sax solo, emphatic bass-lines, synths and guitar effects, possibly fed through a vocoder, producing the burger highlife sound par excellence, whilst within the lyrics, the traditional Twi proverbs are replaced with less culturally specific traditional folkloric references, and in so doing Darko manages to avoid alienating the Ghanian audiences whilst the ‘hooks’ draw in the non-Akan speaking audience. Many others later emulated this important shift in emphasis.

The previous track clocked in at just under eight minutes, and the extended length of many of the songs on this release is also a common feature, with Rex Gyamfi’s Obiara Bewu registering at nigh-on seven minutes. Another wonderfully optimistic and buoyant song, with wild synth notes and rhythms in abundance, the guitar sounds, perhaps incongruously, nevertheless create a definite Soweto Township vibe. Rex is recognised as another burger heavyweight, and the album from which this song is taken, 1985’s Hi-Life For You, was a great success in both Ghana and Nigeria; interestingly, in contrast to many of the tracks on the compilation, most of the musicians on this LP were foreign, rather than Africa-born.

The remaining two ‘German’ tracks are both from the top drawer. The first, Fre Me (Call Me), taken from a 1985 E.P. of the same name, is by Charles Amoah, one of the best-known disco and burger highlife artists of the time. Recorded in Bochum, this song, once again, sees Highlife being taken in new directions, Latin piano progressions, use of a wide range of percussion instruments, together with bass synthesiser, Yamaha DX 7 and Moog synthesisers, electronic drums (RX11 and Simmons), thrilling sax work from Johannes Seidemann, together with outstanding backing vocals from Ampofo Acquah, who was later to feature inGinger Baker’s African Force, make for a deep, funky, R&B sounding take on burger highlife, or, as Amoah himself describes it, “‘ethnopop’.”  The second, Mumude, recorded in Berlin by Nan Mayen, with the merest echo of Highlife in its opening Fanti lyrics, is another polished piece, again with an 80’s pop feel and groove.

The remaining eight offerings were all released in the UK. Adjoa Amisa, from Andy Vans, is an enigmatic piece which, over its eight and a half minutes, presents as a much more laidback sound, readily identifiable as 80s, heavy on synth effects and percussion, with soporific guitar chords and vocals which are almost plainsong-like in their delivery, and, incongruously, with a solid Congolese undercurrent. Starlite’s Anoma Koro, taken from their 1991 L.P. Meko, at nine minutes nineteen seconds, is another lengthy track which combines Accra highlife, synth effects, Afro-Cuban claves rhythms and endearing vocals with relentlessly driving, repetitive guitar patterns and horns which, once again, bring to mind the music of the Townships.  

Trombone player Abdul Raheem’s career dates back to the 1960s. After playing throughout West Africa, in a variety of bands, he joined Osibisa and moved to London in the 80s. Alaiye, with its Yoruba lyrics, is an up-tempo composition just bursting with energy, which accentuates funky horns and throbbing bass lines that threaten the speaker cones, but the spotlight really falls upon Abdul’s stunning trombone playing. Jon K’s Asafo is equally frenetic with the burger highlife sound illuminated perfectly once more. Whilst the original version made famous by C.K.Mann ran to 13 minutes, the version presented here is only a third as long, which is a shame, as the scorching guitar solo from Alfred Bannerman and the, at times, falsetto vocals end all too quickly.

The same comment cannot be levelled at Barima Nsu, Kwasi Afari Minta’s ten-minute offering. A victim of the Kings Cross Station fire, which cut short his career, the song is taken from the cassette release of the same name recorded in Dalston with the help of Tigi Beckley following the tragedy. A relentless groove permeates the track, and, somewhat bizarrely, the vocals sound very much like Bob Dylan.

The widely-travelled Gyedu-Blay Ambolley, credited with being the first musician to incorporate rap forms into local highlife rhythms, also created the musical genre Simigwa. He released his Apple L.P. on Sunrise Records in 1986, which he describes as “experimental, with elements of funk and disco, backed by highlife”, and this compilation carries the title track. When listening to the song, one could be forgiven for thinking of the Theme for Shaft, not only in terms of the vocal delivery but also the creative brass and bass playing, alongside the outstanding Yamaha DX9 and Korg Synth contributions of Bessa Simons.

Indeed, Cape Coast musician and producer Bessa, another one-time member of Osibisa, contributes a track in his own right, too, by way of Sii Nana, the opening track from his 1990 L.P. Bessa. A lighter song with a pop sensibility, his keyboards are very much to the fore and are augmented by some fine flugelhorn playing, courtesy of Mandy Budge.

The final track, Asosbrachie, comes from Nana Budjei, a singer and guitarist originally from central Ghana who moved to London in the mid-80s. Taken from his 1988 album Afrikaman, which won Blues and Soul Magazine’s ‘Best African Album’ award, the song represents the epitome of reggae-highlife, tinged with Southern Soul flavours which he sees as “my masterpiece, influenced by reggae maestros Bob Marley and Alpha Blondy, and traditional Akan folklore music”. It’s a fitting end to a compilation focusing on the various highlife mutations that occurred during the 80s and early 90s.

Soundway are to be congratulated on compiling an album that truly reflects the proud Ghanaian identity found in the innovative and creative style of the groundbreaking burger highlife.

Available as 3xLP gatefold, 2CD & Digital formats, with extensive background information, this review was completed using the CD version.

Ghana Special 2: Electronic Highlife & Afro Sounds In The Diaspora, 1980-93 is released on 10th May on Soundway.

To celebrate Ghana Special 2: Electronic Highlife & Afro Sounds In The Diaspora, 1980-93, a live supergroup featuring three generations of musicians, including Pat Thomas, Charles Omoah and K.O.G, will perform at UK’s Womad Festival and HKW in Berlin:

11th July – HKW, Berlin, Germany – more

27th July – Womad Festival, UK – More

Hot on the heels of last year’s Onliness, which saw Josienne Clarke recording, reworking and reclaiming a collection of her older songs, comes Parenthesis, I. Thirteen songs about finding who you are through the prism of where you came from and where you’re heading towards. Clarke always says that she only does sad songs, and there’s a certain truth in that, but many of these songs are laced with hope.

Currently living on an island in the West of Scotland, many of these recordings are shaped by living on the coast, and there’s watery images peppered amongst her lyrics. Talking of which, this is the sound of an artist who is really finding her feet and her confidence. She’s a tremendous songwriter, and the clarification of her voice makes you really lean in and listen to what she’s saying. You can’t help but become enraptured by the hypnotic qualities to songs like ‘Fear of Falling’, ‘The Calm’ or the title track itself. The former being totally shaped by the place where she resides now. Clarke has spoken of walking by the harbour everyday, taking a deep breath of sea air and reminding herself to leave the past where it belongs”.

To those familiar with Clarke’s previous solo work, they may be surprised by the jazzier ‘Looking Glass’ or the answer ballad ‘Dead Woman’s Bones’, where Clarke retells the traditional “The Two Sisters” from the point of view of the bones of the woman killed and turned into an instrument.

“Bright red…the blood I have bled for you” – so begins ‘Forbearing’, her most nakedly personal song. It’s a hard and beautiful listen, coming from where she hit rock bottom, when she suffered a series of traumatic events, leaving her to wonder what the point of her existence was. As Clarke said herself, “being at your lowest ebb…you either give up or you fundamentally change the way you think about yourself, your life and the space you afford yourself in it”.

This talk about how the space your life fills also crops up in ‘Double-Edged Sword’ – “My ability to stay alive is my only power”. As Clarke notes, “refusing to surrender is not the same as fighting” This is one of several songs too where her band of Matt Robinson, Dave Hamblett and Alec Bowman-Clarke come to the fore. This is also a great example of how many of these songs may be framed in darkness, but there’s enough light allowed in to let them breathe and develop. This makes for an easier listen than it could be, and also rewards repeated listening Where songs like ‘FireCracker’ and ‘Do You Know How’ shed layers, allowing the listener to hear something new each time.

After a few years of refinding her feet and herself, we find ourselves listening to the sprawling and ambitious title track, which certainly points the way towards greater horizons. As if this is an adventure that is just beginning, and that Clarke’s most exciting and vital songs are yet to be recorded. It’s a song about recovery and not allowing yourself to be imprisoned by whatever’s happened in your past. “Darkness is only an absence of light in its space”. It’s a song that lyrically could have theses writing about it.

As one of the best songwriters working in this country today, it’s very fitting that Parenthesis, I ends with a song about songwriting itself. About the process of setting words to a page, of finding a melody to fit and growing something from the ground. ‘Magic Somehow’ is the most hopeful song on the record, and shows that Clarke is ready to tackle the world, one sad song at a time. Long may this continue, for the music world is a thousand times better for someone so talented sharing what she can do with us.